New Korean studies major begins accepting students

The department expanded Korean studies with students like Elise Kim in mind. As a sophomore, Kim decided to take a Korean language class, thinking it would just be for one semester. 

“I was immediately struck by the rigor of the curriculum, the dedication of the professors, and the strength of the program as a whole,” said Kim. “That experience pushed me to keep going, and now I’ve been taking Korean courses for three years.

“Being able to major in Korean means I can engage more deeply with the culture and history in an academic and immersive way,” continued Kim. “As a Korean American, I see it as a way of connecting with my heritage. I’m really excited that Berkeley is offering this major — it opens up new possibilities for students like me to approach Korean studies with both personal and scholarly depth.”

To prepare for additional students, the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures recently hired Stella Kim to teach Korean history and culture and will soon add another faculty member.

“I'm excited and elated,” said Jinsoo An, the professor who shepherded the Korean studies major’s proposal. “It is the right time, and Berkeley is the right place. The university made a sound and wise decision to support building the Korean studies program.”

An is the Korea Foundation Chancellor's Chair in Korean Language & Culture. The organization established the chair in 2020 with a $2.5 million grant that also allowed the department to hire Kevin Shadel. The department is currently searching for donors to unlock the final $500,000 match offer.

An teaches Korean cinema. His packed courses attract both cinephiles who love movies and students who want to expand their understanding of Korean culture through popular work.

Since the 1990s, the “Korean Wave” of popular film, television, and music — exemplified by Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, Netflix’s Squid Game, and K-pop groups like BTS and Blackpink — has captivated much of the world. This cultural phenomenon is particularly pronounced amongst UC Berkeley’s Gen Z students.

Demographics also play a role in rising enrollment numbers. UC Berkeley has become an attractive destination for South Korean and Korean-American students who often seek to examine their heritage in an academic context. In 2023, the federal government designated UC Berkeley as an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution in recognition of the support and resources the campus offers to its community.

One can see this dynamic play out across campus, from Korean student groups to the upcoming Korean Experimental Music Festival to new dance courses in K-pop and traditional Korean. The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures also formed an East Asian humanities major in 2023, allowing a broad range of scholarship into the complex and populous region. 

UC Berkeley’s Korean Program dates back to 1943. Japan had banned the use of the Korean language in all school curricula in 1942 when it controlled Korea as its colony. Dr. Bong Youn Choy was a new faculty member teaching Japanese at UC Berkeley. He began teaching Korean as a volunteer and wrote the first college-level textbook in the U.S. to help preserve the language.

Nowadays, Korean is one of the most-studied languages on the Berkeley campus. Seven Korean language instructors offer 15 different courses, reaching around 400 to 500 students each year. In 2004, Berkeley began offering a minor in Korean.

“Berkeley’s Korean Program is part of the history of the Korean language, which moves every Korean,” said An.

Korean studies majors can find a wealth of primary documents in the C.V. Starr East Asian Library's Chong-Moon Lee Korean Collection. The library holds over 102,000 items related to Korea, including rare manuscripts, banned books, historical church materials, and woodblocks dating back to 1213.

Students also get a boost from the Center for Korean Studies, which sponsors undergraduate research and travel grants in addition to conferences, workshops, seminars, a colloquium series, and the annual Hong Yung Lee Book Award. This year, the center will be partnering with BAMPFA to host speakers at two events: Lee ShinJa’s first North American exhibition and a retrospective on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.

“We pride ourselves in bringing the top new scholars in Korean studies to Berkeley,” said Steven Lee, an English professor and the center’s new chair. “Research centers are places where serendipitous encounters can occur, bringing together people who usually wouldn't rub shoulders with one another. Undergraduates have certainly been drawn into this opportunity to meet with the foremost scholars in Korean studies.”

Lee noted that departments can be quite siloed on campus, so research units often serve as intermediaries. Though he wasn’t involved in developing the new major, he is optimistic about the future of the field at UC Berkeley.

“Korea's a small place, but it has such an outsized presence in the cultural imagination,” said Lee. “My hope is that we can use Korea to rethink current paradigms and disciplines  — to think of it not just as regional studies, but as one node for getting at larger questions regarding politics, pop culture, and identity.”

An agreed with Lee’s sentiment.

“South Korea is a unique case to study and explore,” said An. “It's a country that is divided — maintained by a long tradition, but at the same time, it has undergone compressed modernization. It is, on the one hand, thriving. On the other hand, you see a precipitous decline in the birth rate, an outcome of various social-economic factors. The insights one can draw about Korea will help any student see their own culture and society in a new way.”